News in brief

News in brief

Olympian, 80, warned over exercising on escalators

Former Olympic hurdler Peter Hildreth, aged 80, who represented Great Britain in the Games of 1952, 1956 and 1960, has been banned from running the wrong way up the escalators in a department store in his home town of Farnham, Surrey. Hildreth, said he wanted to prove to friends he was still fit.

Smuggled tobacco seized

Nine tons of smuggled Golden Virginia tobacco, worth £2.2m and enough to make 19m cigarettes, has been seized from a container at Southampton port. Packets will be tested to determine authenticity; the rest will be burned.

Murderer Brady unwell

Moors murderer Ian Brady is in Liverpool's Aintree Hospital after complaining of being unwell. Brady, 70, an inmate at Ashworth High Security Hospital, was convicted in 1966 of murdering five children with Myra Hindley.

Belsen doctor, 94, dies

Douglas Brock Peterkin, of Dawlish, Devon, one of the first Allied doctors to enter the liberated Belsen Nazi concentration camp in 1945, has died aged 94. He helped a fellow officer transfer 7,000 detainees into ambulances before contracting typhus.

M5 death led to traffic chaos

Thousands of holidaymakers heading south-west were in 15-mile traffic jams after an accident on the M5 near Exeter. One man died in the incident, which took place in thick fog at about 5.30am.

Wye probe into trout deaths

Environment Agency officials are investigating the death of 1,000 young salmon and trout fry in a tributary of the River Wye in Powys, Wales.